


bouquet of violets

by orphan_account



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-21 00:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6031450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles for Tokyo Ghoul Femslash Week on Tumblr. </p><p>Day 1 (Sight): Touka/Rize<br/>Day 3 (Taste): Akira/Saiko<br/>Day 4 (Touch): Touka/Kimi<br/>Day 6 (Time): Touka/Yoriko<br/>Day 7 (Free Day): Rize/Eto</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. first sight (Rize/Touka)

It wasn’t exactly love at first sight. It wasn’t hate at first sight, either, because Touka decided that Rize wasn’t worth her hate. It was more like annoyance at first sight when Rize swept into Anteiku carrying a book under her arm. Touka couldn’t exactly name why she felt such annoyance the first time she saw Rize, but she explained it to herself by saying she was just trusting her instincts. 

  


Touka heard things around Anteiku. She knew everything from which ghouls had been captured and who was fighting over what territory down to which ghoul had broken up with their significant other. Anteiku was the place where all the ghoul gossip in the twentieth ward collected. So she knew that Rize was the Binge Eater long before the CCG even thought of giving her the nickname. And it confirmed her annoyance: Rize was just looking for trouble, and she could easily bring that trouble to Anteiku.  
  


As much as Touka hated to admit it, she had also been awed at first sight. Rize carried herself like a predator. The humans around her didn’t notice, and Touka might not have noticed if she had any less experience identifying predators. Rize had the same air about her as a CCG investigator: she was danger, she was paranoia, she was death. That meant she could take care of herself. Touka’s awe didn’t diminish when she found out Rize was the Binge Eater; in fact, it just confirmed her awe. She didn’t condone what Rize was doing, but she was impressed that Rize could spit in the face of the CCG like she did. She hunted without fear, she lived without fear, because she was strong. Touka envied her. 

  


When Touka saw Rize again she was unconscious in Yomo’s arms. Her body was weak and Touka learned, later, that her mind was fragile as well. They kept her locked up for a long time, feeding her only the minimum of what she needed, until Rize wasn’t a threat anymore--or, at least, until she was in control of herself. There would never be a time when Rize wasn’t a threat. As much as Touka wished Rize could make it easy for her, she also admired the fact that she remained a threat even after she had experienced the worst. Touka feared Rize: it was not that she feared for her own safety when Rize was around her, but rather she understood that Rize, just by returning to her old ways, could destroy everything Touka had built. She could destroy Touka’s safety, Touka’s home, Touka’s life. 

  


There was something about kissing Rize, then, that stirred Touka’s blood. It was the feeling of touching disaster. It was the feeling of standing at the threshold of death and returning to the world of the living. 


	2. candy is dandy but liquor is quicker (Akira/Saiko)

Akira knocked on Saiko’s door. Urie had left earlier that evening mumbling something about going to the gym, and Mutsuki had disappeared “to get dinner” over an hour previous. Mutsuki had tried to get Saiko out of her room that evening before he left, but she had refused and remained in her bed. It was clear that Urie coped with Shirazu’s and Sasaki’s absences by spending as little time in the chateau as possible, and Mutsuki was only around as long as he felt he was needed, but Saiko holed up in her room and stayed there. 

Akira knocked again, to no response. “I’m coming in,” she announced, and opened the door slowly. Saiko glanced up from her phone, but remained in her cocoon of blankets on her bed. Akira leaned in the doorway and surveyed the mess of clothing, food wrappers, chip and cookie bags, shoes, and magazines that obscured the floor from view. In her bed, Saiko was dressed in sweatpants and a CCG sweatshirt and scrolling on her cell phone while she ate cookies from a box.

“Yonebayashi, you need to come out and have a proper dinner,” Akira instructed.  
  
“I have snacks in here,” Saiko responded distractedly. She kept her eyes on her phone and ate another cookie. 

“You haven’t eaten a meal the entire time I’ve been here,” Akira said.

“How long have you been here?” Saiko asked. Akira wasn’t surprised that she didn’t know; she could have moved in and Saiko wouldn’t have noticed.

“Since this morning. You need to eat some real food or you’ll get weak,” Akira reminded her. 

Saiko rolled onto her back and let her phone drop onto her belly. It slid down and landed on the bed. “Urghghg,” she mumbled. 

Akira could have ordered Saiko to come out and eat, but she didn’t have the heart to do it. She had comforted Saiko during Shirazu’s funeral and heard her crying through the walls when Sasaki had finally moved out. Since Sasaki had quit the squad, Akira had been the one to watch over the quinxes. She didn’t live with the quinxes like Sasaki had, but she had fallen asleep on the couch while sorting through files and discussing cases with Mutsuki enough that the chateau qualified as her second residence. Akira had seen enough of Saiko’s grief that she couldn’t muster up any harshness.

“Yonebayashi...” she began quietly. 

“Wait! I know what we can do,” Saiko announced. She rolled up into a sitting position and tucked her phone into her pocket. “I’ll come out of my room, it’s a compromise.” 

Akira furrowed her brow in surprise as Saiko got out of bed and went to rummage in her closet. She came out holding a large white bottle.

“Is that rum?” Akira asked, shocked. 

“Yep,” Saiko replied matter-of-factly. She passed Akira in the doorway and went to the kitchen. She grabbed two coffee mugs out of the cupboard and set them down on the table before rummaging in the refrigerator for a carton of orange juice. Once she was done, she sat down at the table and began mixing herself a drink--well, she was pouring orange juice on top of what Akira saw was coconut rum. 

“You haven’t even had any dinner yet,” Akira noted. She came and sat down next to Saiko at the kitchen table. 

“I’ve had a lot to eat today,” Saiko said as she began pouring rum into the other mug, clearly meant for Akira. 

“I shouldn’t be drinking,” Akira said, and pushed away the mug.

“What’s the point? Sasaki isn’t around.” Saiko shrugged and took a long drink from her mug. “Ugh, gross,” she complained, and poured more orange juice into her drink. 

Akira didn’t think that Saiko was one for bitterness, but she could hear the sadness in her tone. The worst part, Akira knew, was that after the Rosewald investigation, Sasaki had to return to the chateau to gather his belongings. It wasn’t like he decided to leave and then never had to see his former squad again: he had packed up his belongings and Urie and Saiko and Mutsuki had helped him move them out of the house in silence. And the three of them couldn’t avoid him around the CCG, either, since he was always in meetings with them. 

_Fuck it_ , Akira thought. She took a swig from the mug and wrinkled her nose. Coconut rum was not exactly her style. 

“Yay!” Saiko exclaimed, but Akira thought it lacked feeling. She decided she needed to have some kind of conversation with Saiko: anything to try to get her out of the funk she was in. She couldn’t be a functional investigator unless she left her room, and Akira didn’t want her to end up in trouble with the higher-ups for not doing her job. 

“Yonebayashi, you can’t keep staying in your room all day,” Akira told her. 

“Yes I can, and I can keep drinking every night, too,” Saiko retorted with a smile. She took another drink from her mug. Akira noted that the bottle of rum was about a third empty, and she wondered what Saiko had been getting up to at night after Akira left the chateau.

“It’s really not a good idea. There are eyes on the squad right now, people expecting you to perform well even without Sasaki,” Akira reminded her. _You don’t want to get this operation shut down, she thought._

“We can’t perform well with Sasaki gone, that’s the problem,” Saiko grumbled. Akira took a drink and sighed. 

“I know...that’s what it seems like now,” Akira began. “But eventually you have to get over it when you lose someone. Be glad he’s still alive. As investigators, we can’t take that for granted.” Akira looked out the window at the darkened city. Saiko didn’t say anything, and Akira looked back to her. 

She was crying. Of course. Of course she knew they couldn’t take life for granted. 

“I’m sorry,” Akira apologized sincerely. Hesitantly, she reached out and covered Saiko’s hand with her own. It reminded her of the moment when she had embraced Sasaki, not long ago, except there was something about this girl that drew Akira in. 

“It’s fine,” Saiko sniffled. She rubbed her eyes with her free hand and took a long drink, draining her glass. She reached for the bottle of rum, but Akira caught her hand and guided it back to the table. Saiko didn’t resist; she just allowed Akira to take both of her hands as she continued to cry. 

It was the depth of her love. Akira had felt it when Saiko cried on her at Shirazu’s funeral and she felt it now. Akira wasn’t one to cry frequently; she felt like her emotions were better kept private. But Saiko felt love deeply and she couldn’t contain it. Love or grief, she couldn’t contain it. She was vital; she was enthusiastically vulnerable. 

Saiko put her head down on top of Akira’s hands. Akira let her. 


	3. how beautiful (Kimi/Touka)

Touka ran her fingers up Kimi’s bare sides. Her fingers skipped over the bottom of Kimi’s ribcage; she could feel the ridges of her ribs under Kimi’s skin. The pads of Touka’s fingers, callused and burned from years of working at Anteiku, scratched slightly against Kimi’s soft skin. Touka marveled at the warmth that radiated from Kimi’s body and then, as her fingers traced upwards, the swell of Kimi’s small breasts. 

Touka knew she was staring, and glanced up at Kimi’s face. She smiled like she was about to laugh.

“Don’t laugh at me!” Touka insisted. She dropped her hands to Kimi’s waist.

“You look like a teenage boy seeing boobs for the first time,” Kimi teased with a grin. Touka felt herself blush and bit back a scathing remark. There was no reason for her to lash out at Kimi, not there, not on that night when they knelt on Kimi’s bed in darkened apartment. The darkened apartment she had once shared with Nishiki, though he was gone now. 

How beautiful. Touka remembered the words that Kimi had said to her while Touka’s kagune blazed in the air and her body brimmed with fear and rage. The words were a balm to her anger and panic and she had carried them with her since that day in the church. She had never thought that she would be able to touch Kimi like this: with an awe and gentleness reserved for the most precious of people. Touka had never touched anyone like that.

Kimi lifted Touka’s chin with her fingers and kissed her softly. Touka raised her hands and cupped Kimi’s face, leaning into the kiss. Kimi drew back first and traced Touka’s collarbone with her soft fingers. Touka had yet to experience the slow exploration of one another’s bodies with no regard for the passing of time and no fear of interruption. They were marooned together on the island of the bed, under moonlight and swaddled by safety. Touka hadn’t experienced that kind of peace since before Anteiku burned. 

Touka lifted her fingers to the scar that gleamed white on Kimi’s shoulder. The scar was a circle of shiny white tissue rimmed by deeper indents where Nishiki’s teeth had dug into Kimi’s flesh. Kimi turned her head to watch the movements of Touka’s hands as she ran her fingers over the teeth marks and the scar tissue in between. 

Bravery and loyalty and tolerance. That’s what the scar said. Kimi had to keep it hidden under her clothes to avoid suspicion, but in front of Touka she wore it like a badge. 

“Is it ugly to you?” Kimi asked. She titled her head to the side, and her brown hair brushed against her shoulder. Her face looked unconcerned, like even if Touka told her that it was hideous she wouldn’t care. 

Touka shook her head adamantly. She didn’t know what else to say. She wasn’t one for sappy words; she wasn’t one to say that she thought Kimi’s scar meant she could trust her, and that trust was what she needed most right now when Anteiku had been stolen from her. She wasn’t one to say that in that moment Kimi was the only person who she could rely on, and that the scar was a symbol of that. 

“How beautiful,” she murmured instead.


	4. I can't wait to meet you again, friend (Touka/Yoriko)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title is from "Hands Remember" by Seabear!

Touka tapped her pen against the counter and gazed out the window in RE’s storefront. The sky had darkened with rain early that afternoon, and though the rain had stopped the sky remained gray. The street outside RE was nearly empty and so was the shop, save for an elderly man reading a newspaper in the corner. Yomo had left for the day, and Touka was waiting for the last customer to leave so she could close up the shop early. After a couple minutes, during which Touka watched the street absently, the man waved to Touka and ducked out the door. 

Touka was alone in the shop, but rather than hurrying to turn the sign to closed and lock the door, she remained behind the counter and kept her eyes on the street. The asphalt was clean from the rain, and even through the door Touka could smell the sweetness of the passing storm. It was a beautiful day for an anniversary.

One year had passed since Anteiku burned. On that day Touka thought of the people she had left behind. 

Touka remembered a day in Yoriko’s apartment, back when they were both still in high school. They were sprawled out on blankets and pillows on the floor of Yoriko’s bedroom, and Yoriko held Touka’s hand gently in hers. Yoriko carefully painted dark purple polish onto Touka’s nails, but her hands were clumsy and she kept accidentally dragging the brush against Touka’s skin. There was nothing special about the memory, except that Touka could still hear the two of them laughing as Yoriko’s hand slipped and she painted one of Touka’s fingertips entirely purple. Yoriko had always been able to help her forget her fears and regrets and preoccupations. 

Touka watched a woman walking a dog cross in front of the cafe. She wondered vaguely whether that woman had ever had to cast aside everything that had mattered to her and built her life anew. She wondered whether that woman knew how to pack light, run fast, and forget. 

There were a few people Touka wouldn’t allow herself to forget. Hinami was one of them. Yoriko was another. That day, though, she thought about Yoriko, because event though she had thrown away her phone she knew that Yoriko had texted her, and then texted her again when she didn’t reply, and called her to make sure she was okay, and Touka had never responded. She knew that one day she had been in Yoriko’s life and the next day she was gone. 

The bell on the door rang and Touka perked up for a moment. But it was just a regular, a young woman in a green dress, dropping by in the last few minutes before the store closed for a cup of coffee. 

For a second, though, Touka had allowed herself some wild hope. On days like that, when the passage of time seemed so flimsy and moments toppled over each other like dominoes--when the past and the present seemed to collide and crumple together so easily--she imagined seeing Yoriko walk through the door. She was torn between hope and dread, but that day she allowed herself to hope. 


	5. the queen's secret (Rize/Eto)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for reading! make sure to check out tg-femslash-week.tumblr.com for more femslash stuff from this week <3 <3

Eto’s favorite bookstore smelled like coffee and the full, earthy scent of old books. The small cafe in the corner had initially attracted her to the shop, since she liked to sample as many coffee locations as possible, but it had been years since her first visit and she remained charmed by the shop’s eclectic selection and humble vibe. She felt welcomed by the crowd as well: the owner was a ghoul, so most of the customers were, too. The owner, a middle-aged woman who wore her gray hair in a bun, was a Takatsuki Sen fan, and Eto had done book signings and readings at the shop in the past. Eto waved at the owner, who was working at the register, as she walked in. 

That day, Eto was in search of a simple romance book. She had been doing mostly heavy reading recently, as usual, and she felt like relaxing with something fun and light. Eto usually sought out lesbian romances, and the shop carried a small but excellent selection of lesbian novels, so she headed towards the romance section and directed her gaze towards the books on the top shelf.

A tall, young ghoul woman with purple hair and glasses was browsing through the books to Eto’s right. She thumbed through the small selection of gay erotica titles on the shelf. The woman pulled a book from the shelf--Passion in the Cosmos by Kay Cox, a popular American erotica writer whose books had been translated into several languages--and Eto couldn’t help but smirk slightly at the woman’s questionable taste. Cox was popular, but Eto herself had written better gay erotica in her free time. 

Eto looked away from the woman and back to the top shelf. Her eye caught on a bright-pink book--she could see on the spine that it was The Queen’s Secret, a book she had seen recommended online. She looked around for a stool she could stand on to reach the book, but there wasn’t one in sight. 

“Excuse me,” she said to the woman beside her. “Could you help me reach a book? It’s The Queen’s Secret, up there, with the pink spine,” Eto asked. 

The woman smiled, and Eto noted that the smile looked, somehow, distinctly unpleasant, as if the woman was smiling because she had recently seen a spectacular specimen of roadkill. Eto liked that smile. 

“Sure,” the woman replied. She reached up to the top shelf easily and pulled the book down. Before handing it to Eto, however, she scanned the cover. It showed a woman in a gaudy, low-cut gown whispering in the ear of another woman, who wore what appeared to be an impractically-low-cut servant’s uniform. 

“The Queen’s Secret?” the woman asked skeptically. “I wouldn’t recommend this one. It has all the substance of a cereal commercial. You must not be very experienced with the romance genre,” she concluded. 

Eto was surprised at the woman’s backhanded rudeness, but she didn’t let it show on her face. After all, the woman kept her poisonous smile on the whole time. 

“I’m sure you’d recommend something more substantial, like...Kay Cox? Is that more to your taste?” Eto retorted brightly. 

The woman smiled and pulled a pen and a small journal from the pocket of her coat. She scrawled something on a page of the journal, then ripped it out and tucked it between the pages of Eto’s book. She then handed the book back to Eto.

“Kamishiro Rize,” she stated. “By the way, I love your books.” Rize turned away, Kay Cox book in hand, and left the romance aisle without looking back. 

Eto stood there, slightly stunned for the first time in as long as she could remember. She pulled the piece of paper out of the book and found that a phone number was written there. Rather than signing it with her name, Rize had drawn a small smiley face that, somehow, looked a little evil. 


End file.
